


The Light that Shadows Bring

by Einsteinette



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age II
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, F/M, Haven't quite figured out where this is going, Hurt!Hawke, Isabela is a babe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 22:19:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4496859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Einsteinette/pseuds/Einsteinette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hawke is sassy, Anders is fretful and Isabela is still a complete babe.</p><p>Hawke is downed on a mission to Sundermount.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Light that Shadows Bring

The battle was going well.

If for some reason "well" had suddenly become a synonym for ungodly awful. 

It had started out just fine; Anders, Fenris, Isabela and Hawke were certainly not a team of people one messed with just for fun, but the fight had suddenly taken a turn for the worse when one of those damn Shadow Assassins had entered the brawl. The skeletons on Sundermount were not your average undead, but our unusual band of miscreants had been holding their own, Anders and Hawke casting fireballs and freezing peoples innards like a well-oiled machine, while Fenris hacked and sawed his way through more and more of the corpses. The Rivaini pirate had snuck around the crazed loner who decided this was the day he wanted to die, and she was systematically driving him even more insane, slashing at his throat before disappearing in that fantastic way of hers and reappearing behind him, driving her twin blades into his back. 

Hawke finished immolating one of the walking bone-heads and turned to fight another when a black figure caught her gaze. A Shadow Assassin, dashing in to catch Fenris unawares. He had begun to stumble a bit and she could tell that one of the corpses had managed to hack a chunk out of his side. 

Well shit. 

She took careful aim and fired a bolt of lighting at the offending shadow, hitting it square in the back of the head. It tipped forward and she'd thought it was at it's end when it whirled around, bending the light to it's will, vanishing from sight. 

She cursed in that casual way Hawke was known for, and spun around, searching the mountain side for any sign of the blasted creature. Finding none, she looked over her shoulder just in time to see Fenris plunge his blade into the lunatic's chest, the loner's knees giving out only for him to slump over the long blade. The moody elf planted his foot above the entry wound and wrenched  his sword from the loner's body, bloody rivulets trailing after it. 

The clearing was strewn with the bones of the undead-alive-dead-again. The rocks looked like one of those painting's that Merril fancied so much, splattered with blood she assumed came from her comrades as skeletons don't make it a habit of bleeding. Isabela was wiping her little daggers off in a patch of dewy grass some feet away and Anders was at Fenris' side, insisting he look at the elf's wound though Fenris was being stubborn as usual, insisting he didn't need help from a "damn apostate". 

"I'm out of mana anyway. Hawke, take a look at this bloody fool's wound, why don't you? See if you can't get him to cooperate."

Hawke strode over, still catching her breath, nursing a few of her own scratches. 

"I don't see how it makes a difference. I'm fresh out of magic too and I used our last potion treating Isabela after the enormous fucking spider decided it liked the way she tasted."

"Can you blame it?" Isabela asked, "I mean look at me, I'm simply scrumptious." 

Hawke silently agreed but turned her gaze back on her wounded friend.

"He'll just have to wait until we make it back to the city. You can patch him up at your clinic." She turned to make her way back into the caves that would lead them down the mountain when a noise like an angry tempest filled the clearing. 

That can't be good. 

She made a move to turn around but for some reason she was suddenly out of breath. Maybe it had something to do with the searing agony in her back? She dropped to one knee, the sickening slurp that can only be made when flesh is involved accompanying her to the earth.

Ander's let out an alarmed yell and Isabela cursed loudly, her blades making a metallic Shick!  as they were pulled from their scabbards. Hawke could still feel the hot iron prod that had decided it wanted to call the space between her ribs 'home'. It had to be scalding her lung tissue because she could have sworn that she had suddenly started exhaling smoke. Maybe she had finally gotten Flemmeth to turn her into a dragon after all. 

An enraged cry rang in her ears and the blade, for it was indeed a blade and not a burning iron poker, lodged in her back was wrenched free and a body crumpled to the ground behind her. She followed it into the dirt, her face smacking into the pebbled ground painfully. Not that her face was her biggest worry at the moment but why damage the goods anymore than necessary. I mean a girl has to make a living, right?

She was suddenly surrounded by people and ain't that how it always goes? The hero falls and her team falls with her. All Isabela's hard work in cleaning her blades had gone to waste as they were one again covered in some poor sap's entrails. She didn't seem so occupied with them now, though. 

Hawke coughed and blood bubbled up between her lips. She spat, the all too familiar taste unwelcome in her mouth and suddenly Anders was there...covered in pink spittle. He had appeared at her side, pulling her into his lap and brushing her hair back from her forehead. 

"Hawke? Hawke, baby talk to me!" His eyes were manic, rolling wildly, searching her face for some sort of recognition. 

"Since when do you call me "Baby"?" She grunted.

He didn't laugh (shocker), panic clouding his eyes and he pulled her so their chests were flushed together, looking at the deep wound in her back, just to the right of her heart and spinal cord. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're lucky. Two inches to the left and you'd have as much life as all these damn skeletons."

"Well I wouldn't say 'lucky'," she coughed, "But those skeletons do have a knack for coming back to life. If I do the same, then I'll be lucky."

"You are not going to die," he said firmly, his grip tightening on her shoulders. 

Isabela toed the body of the Shadow Assassin that had essentially made Hawke his bitch before Isabela had made him her's. She tisked. 

"Now, now. Is that anyway to treat one of Kirkwall's most prestigious? And look at her, who'd want to mess up that beautiful body?" She shoved the assassin away. Fenris was still holding his side but he seemed to have forgotten the pain for the moment. 

"Hawke, can you walk? We need to get her back to camp." He growled at Anders who was still clutching her to him. In way of response, she hacked up what appeared to be another pint of blood. 

"I'll take that as a no." Isabela said. She stood. "Let's go, we need to get her out of here. Anders, you take her first. Once you tire, let me know and I'll have a turn with the sweet thing."

Hawke chuckled and winced. "Wish that wasn't the first time I'd heard those words spoken in the same sentence." Hawke said and Isabela laughed aloud. 

"I'll make you a deal, Sweetheart. You stay alive and I'll make sure it's not the last time you hear it."

"I doubt...Anders'll go for...that one." Hawke slurred. Her vision was a little fuzzy and for some reason her mouth just refused to cooperate. This was just like that time at the Hanged Man when Isabela dared Hawke to see who could drink more. They had both ended up completely shit-faced and Varric had called it a tie while Fenris and Anders had carried them upstairs to one of the rooms to sleep it off. The headache she had woken up with, however, didn't hold a candle to the agony in her lungs. 

Anders, who had previously been trying to cover his blush, tucked her hands across her chest and lifted her with grace. Their little band of misfits set off down the mountain, walking slowly but with urgency, knowing the whole time they walked, Hawke was losing blood.

Half way down the mountain, Hawke's vision started to go dark and Anders cursed loudly as she went limp in his arms. They stopped, Anders kneeling in the dirt and lowering her body to the ground. 

"Love? Hawke, wake up. Come on..." He shook her gently but firmly, insistence in his movements. Fenris looked tense, his muscles taut under his lyrium branded skin. 

When she didn't stir, Isabela knelt next to Hawke's bloody frame and turned her over so she and Anders could look at the wound. It was green. Bright green, the color of Isabela's acid flasks. 

"Well shit." Isabela said and although her voice was aloof, there was a note of trepidation lying under it. 

"What the hell is that?" Anders asked. 

"Those fucking blades were poisoned. She needs to see a healer. Now." Her voice invited no argument and she looked sharply at Fenris. 

"Carry her, we need to move." Isabela helped shift Hawke to Fenris' back. He grasped her arms as they were draped over his shoulders and they set off at a controlled run, Fenris doing his best to keep her still. 

What seemed like hours later, they were at the city gates, Isabela now cradling Hawke in her arms, her small frame supporting Hawke with surprising ease. 

"What business do you have in Kirkwall." The gate guard called down in a droll voice, obviously bored with his post. 

"We live here, you nug-shit." Anders spat.

"You? Live here? In Hightown?!" The guard laughed uproariously, slapping his thigh. For the first time, the group realized how they must look, spattered with blood, clothes and armor torn and covered in various enemies' insides. 

"This is Ivy Hawke, one of Kirkwall's most prestigious residents. You want her death on your ass?" Isabela called up in her sassiest voice, shifting Hawke in her arms. The guard narrowed his eyes, straining to see if the blood smeared corpse was in fact Hawke.

"What the hell happened to her?" the guard asked, flabbergasted. 

"OPEN THE DAMN GATE, YOU PISS-POT!" Anders yelled. The guard signaled to his fellows below who hurriedly began raising the gate. The four of them entered and resumed their hurried pace. One of Hawke's pale hands fell from where they were crossed over her heart and you could've sworn it was the hand of a corpse.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you guys think this story should continue. I originally planned for this to just be a tragic death scene but here we are. Thanks for reading, babes


End file.
